2013 saw the rise of digital strategies used in different ways to engage the masses. Here are the Top 10 digital marketing strategies of the year that was.

In 2013, the annual budget of marketers has seen a swap between spends on print and spends on digital. After Television it is digital as a medium which shared the majority of the marketersâ€™ funds. Strategies that were implemented successfully have shown the ROI in terms of impressions, likes, hits and shares. ROI through television or print was never as easy as it is on the Digital Platform.

Googleâ€™s reunion ad was packaged as a piece of emotionally binding content. The video has been viewed more than 10 million times and still counting. According to Nikhil Rungta, Chief Business Officer, Yebhi.com, the market is moving from campaign marketing to content marketing and advertising about content is redefined as advertising in content.

Experts found Ford Ecosport as one of the best cars of 2013, and its success can be attributed to their winning digital strategy which was the centre of the entire campaign called Ecosport Urban Discovery. The total interactions in the first week after the launch crossed 300,000.

Sunsilkâ€™s Keratinology campaign was a one of its kind campaign which created a personalized and dynamic experience of the brandâ€™s premium range. It was made in the format of interactive videos, a trend which is picking up among marketers. The video started with Malaika Arora Khan asking the user to register and seek the online salon appointment. The user was notified about her appointment in the list. The hair stylist Kiara then asked various questions and later by using webcam, the user could see her in the salon mirror and could experience the hair treatment being performed on her hair type. Jyotsna Makkar, CMO, Microsoft commented about Sunsilkâ€™s Keratinology, â€œThe use of an interactive video and the concept of a virtual makeover were different from other ways of engaging masses through the digital medium.â€

Indian Film Industry & Politics utilized the digital strategy and the returns in both the cases have made history in 2013. Chennai express, followed by Krrish 3 and lately Dhoom 3 made Rs 200 crore for the first time in the history of the film industry. Digital strategy was the new need of the hour for the industry which was best tapped by these three films and the results are there for all to see. Kejriwalâ€™s AAP emerged as Indiaâ€™s best ever debut by any political party and for the first time in history, peopleâ€™s opinion after elections was taken into account as the decisive factor in forming the government.

Talking about reasons behind the success of Chennai Express, Shailja Gupta, the Chief Digital Strategist of Chennai Express said, â€œThe main platforms and sites used in this campaign were the websites, mobile apps, games, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter Puzzles and fan clubs. However, these are mere tools. One of the biggest factors for Chennai Expressâ€™s digital success was integrating social media with different digital products and the daily collection and analysis of large amounts of data to understand the pulse of the digital audience, primarily the youth. â€œ

Pitch presents Top 10 Digital Strategies of 2013 with opinions from Jyotsna Makkar, Shailja Gupta, Pitchâ€™s Editorial Team and rated by Nikhil Rungta.

10. Facebook Log out page
Facebookâ€™s log out page remained the hot spot for brands in 2013. Rungta commented saying, â€œThis aided more than 5000 visits in one day and facebook has driven 7-8 per cent of our business.â€ With 37 million people logging out of Facebook each day, the company believes advertisers will want to reach this massive audience.

9. Samsung
To build on curiosity levels around the S4 launch, Galaxy decided to convey its key features by adopting the popular & commonly played game â€“ â€˜Break the Brickâ€™. Samsungâ€™s strategy was to engage the audience in the game which would incorporate the key features of the Galaxy S4. The campaign allowed Samsung to reach a targeted audience of 1,476,309 unique users with over 6,488,046 impressions.

8. Krrish 3
Krrish 3 adopted Twitter to launch their first look in June 2013, which was 4 months before the release of the movie. Live video chats with Hrithik Roshan and break the brick game spearheaded their digital campaign which helped Rakesh Roshan in breaking Chennai Expressâ€™ record of Rs 200 crore at the box office.

7. Nokia Lumia 1020
The 9.5 million strong fan base of Nokia India Facebook page was on a mission to promote the Nokia Zoom Agent campaign. Till the time Nokia launched Lumia 1020, gaming had already proved to be the best engaging method online. Promoting Nokiaâ€™s flagship smart phone Lumia 1020 with 41 megapixels, users were thrown the challenge to solve a murder mystery for which they needed Lumia 1020â€™s zoom features. Users were called the zoom agents who took help from the high resolution zoom features of the device to investigate and solve a murder mystery. A video promoting a murder case was viewed more than 216K times on Youtube.

6. Dhoom 3
Yash Raj Films along with 99Games Online Pvt Ltd launched the official game for Dhoom 3 movie on Windows Phone. The game was meant to spread the appeal of the anti hero and to ride around through the streets of Chicago. Use of great graphics and fairly good controls kept the buzz heightened before the release of the movie.

5. AAPâ€™s Delhi Election Campaign
Social media can turn around the results in an election. It was just an apprehension before the landmark Delhi Elections in 2013 but the success of AAP and digital mediaâ€™s role in doing that proved the apprehensions true. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), there are more than 165 million internet users in India. Aam Aadmi Partyâ€™s success in Delhiâ€™s election can very well be attributed to their activities and engagements on social media, a strategy which other political parties did not bank much upon.

4. Sunsilk Keratinology
This particular campaign was entirely based on Youtube. Malaika Arora Khan, the brand ambassador and a representative from the Sunsilk Keratinology Hair Studio guided the users about a makeover where users could upload a photograph, choose their hair type and length and then go for the treatment of their choice.
Users were shown a video of this treatment using Keratinology products and at the end of it, they were presented with a new avatar with blow-dried, styled, salon-like hair. With 1338 subscribers and 364,272 views, Sunsilk had developed an admirable Youtube base of followers to launch this conceptualized campaign.

3. Chennai Express
Around the release date of Chennai express, their campaigns were all over the place. TVCs, Promos, Print Ads, Interviews were present on the entire spectrum of media. On the digital front, Chennai Express generated over 1 billion tweets and cumulative impressions and the total number of tweets across all hashtags was over 750 thousand over the 90-day campaign period. Tweets pushed the virtual train from Mumbai to RamNagar, a unique way to engage fans and let them decide, how soon they wanted to enjoy the first look of the film.

2. Ford EcoSport
Urban Discovery was a 360-degree campaign with digital marketing at its core. The campaign invited people from twelve cities to discover not-so-popular spots in their respective cities. The winner of the competition was rewarded a Ford Ecosport.
Explaining this, Vinay Piparsania, Executive Director – Marketing Sales and Service, Ford India, said, â€œThe key point was to generate authentic conversations on a large scale using various digital platforms.â€

1. Google Reunion
Googleâ€™s Reunion Ad was by far the best effort using digital which spread like wild fire. The campaign which was also directed towards the electronic media in the later stage, became viral within a day capturing more than 10 million eyeballs. Googleâ€™s features were wisely placed in a content which hooked people across age groups.